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The Napoleon of Notting Hill
English BooksWhale Edition by G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton imagines future London as a comic battlefield of local patriotism, romance, and absurd political seriousness.
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Book introduction
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
The Napoleon of Notting Hill begins in a dull future London, then erupts when local boroughs are treated like medieval city-states. G. K. Chesterton turns play, heraldry, civic loyalty, and mock war into a lively defense of imagination against bureaucratic sameness.
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This edition is based on a public domain text and has been prepared for digital reading by BooksWhale.
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Why this edition can be shared
G. K. Chesterton died in 1936; the work was first published around 1904. These dates support the public-domain basis for this English edition.
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The Napoleon of Notting Hill
THE NAPOLEON _of_ NOTTING HILL
_By_ GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
_TO HILAIRE BELLOC_
_For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree: You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still,
Preview chapterI saw a moon that was the town's,Preview
The largest lamp on Campden Hill._
_Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home The big blue cap that always fits, And so it is (be calm; they come To goal at last, my wandering wits), So is it with the heroic thing; This shall not end for the world's end, And though the sullen engines swing, Be you not much afraid, my friend._
_This did not end by Nelson's urn Where an immortal England sits-- Nor where your tall young men in turn Drank death like wine at Austerlitz. And when the pedants bade us mark What cold mechanic happenings Must come; our souls said in the dark, "Belike; but there are likelier things."_
_Likelier across these flats afar These sulky levels smooth and free The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found a thing to love._
_Far from your sunny uplands set
Preview chapterI saw the dream; the streets I trodPreview
The lit straight streets shot out and met The starry streets that point to God. This legend of an epic hour A child I dreamed, and dream it still, Under the great grey water-tower That strikes the stars on Campden Hill._
G. K. C.
Table of contents
Inside this edition
- 01Full text
- 02I saw a moon that was the town's,
- 03I saw the dream; the streets I trod
- 04BOOK I
- 05CHAPTER I--_Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy_
- 06CHAPTER II--_The Man in Green_
- 07CHAPTER III--_The Hill of Humour_
- 08BOOK II
- 09CHAPTER I--_The Charter of the Cities_
- 10I am so dignified that I come out quite ill."
- 11CHAPTER II--_The Council of the Provosts_
- 12CHAPTER III--_Enter a Lunatic_
- 13I turn back?"
- 14BOOK III
- 15CHAPTER I--_The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne_
- 16CHAPTER II--_The Remarkable Mr. Turnbull_
- 17I--"
- 18CHAPTER III--_The Experiment of Mr. Buck_
- 19BOOK IV
- 20CHAPTER I--_The Battle of the Lamps_
- 21I am confoundedly sorry for him."
- 22CHAPTER II--_The Correspondent of the Court Journal_
- 23CHAPTER III--_The Great Army of South Kensington_
- 24I knew.
- 25BOOK V
- 26CHAPTER I--_The Empire of Notting Hill_
- 27CHAPTER II--_The Last Battle_
- 28CHAPTER III--_Two Voices_
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